This is embarrassing. The most important mechanism of our country is conducting a fair and honest election. That is infinitely more important than who actually wins the election. When the people have lost trust in the integrity of the election system, we have lost the country.
Going to the mail-in ballot system was flawed to begin with. It was ripe for corruption and completely unnecessary. When certain states are allowing ballots to be turned in and counted days after Election Day, when signatures on ballots need not match the signatures on voter registration cards, when makeshift ballots boxes are set up throughout the country with no guarantee of the custody of each ballot, it is an invitation for voter fraud, and stuffing the ballot boxes.
When determining which ballots should be counted and which ones discarded is turned over to the courts who will favor the candidate of their political persuasion, the legitimacy of the power of the elected officials will be highly questioned, making the laws and legislation they pass appear illegitimate.
It’s easy to admonish people for questioning the legitimacy of the recently elected officials, and tell them to simply ignore what we have just witnessed, accept the results of the election and acknowledge these elected as our leaders. But that would only serve to legitimize an apparent illegitimate process. It’s difficult to accept something that is unfair and rigged.
It made no sense to go down this road of mail-in ballots. I voted in person, and the process was more safe from Covid-19 than going to the grocery store. The health risks were minimal, if at all. And for those who did not want to take that minimal risk, the absentee ballot system which has been in place for decades with a proven track record of integrity was there for them. Why did we need mail-in ballots? We didn’t. It was put in place specifically for what we are witnessing today, either steal the election or delegitimize the President if you can’t.
When a country has lost its integrity in its elections, it has lost its soul. We have lost the soul of this great nation, and how do you regain a lost soul? You probably can’t. And the attempts to do so by hypocritical politicians will be feeble at best. Their speeches filled with high sounding words calling for unity based in principle will fall on deaf ears.
Do you want to be Hank Aaron with 755 legitimate home runs, or Barry Bonds with 762 home runs (445 legitimate and 317 steroid-induced), where the record-books say you’re the home run king but everyone knows you’re not.
To those part and parcel to this fraud, what have you really gained? A divided nation where half the country sees you as illegitimate. You cannot gain power through corrupt means and then expect the laws you use that power to impose on others to be adhered to. Why should the people follow the rules when the leaders have not? How can we expect the people to act with integrity when those in charge have not?
The people will rally around a President they didn’t vote for only if they believe the process of electing him had been fair and legitimate. But if they don’t, they won’t because they will believe they were disenfranchised of their vote in the process. This is why going to the extreme to uphold the legitimacy of elections is the most paramount duty of our government, and in the 2020 election, it is a duty that our officials failed miserably at, and the damage caused may never be repaired.
This election is not the end, it is only the beginning. Boris Yeltsin once said, “You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.” Our future leaders will not be those picked by the will of the people, but will be those who can perpetrate the bigger fraud.
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Judd Garrett is a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He is a frequent contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.